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Targeting Quality Conference 2014

Our 2014 Targeting Quality conference will be two full days, held on October 9 & 10, 2014 at St. George Hall, Waterloo.— register now

This Month's Meeting

February 25, 2015

Sue Johnston

Get the Story Before you Write the 'Story' - Journalistic Skills for Quality Assurance

"Who
are you?" "What do you want?" and "What are you going to do about it?"
Those are the essential questions reporters use for practically any news
story.

Do
they sound familiar? "As a [Who are you?] I want [What do you want?] so
that I can [What are you going to do about it?]." Yup. They're like the
basic formula for user stories.

Like
investigative reporters, investigative QA folk ask a further question,
"What's the impact?" The real story goes beyond facts to context and
meaning. And that answer comes through conversations.

Building
software may seem light years away from journalism, yet there are
techniques to be shared. How does a reporter blend natural curiosity,
information from multiple sources and some basic writing skills to
create a factual, unbiased story - one that's useful to its audience -
and deliver it for daily release?

In
this interactive session, Sue will examine the parallels between
interviewing people for news gathering and interviewing the widest
variety of people to understand the context in which your product is
being used.

You'll discover how to:

Identify the best people to talk with - they may not be the usual suspects

Explore ways to make users and subject matter experts excited about talking with you

Practise techniques for questioning that build trust and elicit information

Navigate via curiosity - this is not the time to be an expert

Create a story in which you make meaning from relevant voices and perspectives

You'll
leave with tools reporters use to develop their products and be able to
apply them to create and use effective user stories that lead to useful
and usable products.